


Shrapnel Brighter Than the Stars

by flightrules



Series: Fireworks [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (or at least I did try), Dom!Luke, Dom/sub, F/M, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Porn With Plot, and have a lot of sex, because of course they do, but oh lord how did I end up writing this, he's not exactly a natural, if you know what i mean, sort of, starfighter pilots drink a lot, the other genfic writers are going to kick me out of the club, well in a very Luke Skywalker sort of way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:31:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6500911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightrules/pseuds/flightrules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Someone On The Internet pointed out that there was a significant lack of D/s fic with a Dom!Luke. So, here. Have some.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Luke has a very interesting evening, after a very bad day.</p><p>Set between ANH and ESB. Featuring a young Luke, a female pilot OC I've become quite fond of, and a cameo from Wedge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shrapnel Brighter Than the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no idea why I thought it necessary to try to remedy this gap in the fandom library. Or how I ended up writing a whole story around it.
> 
> Don't get your hopes up for hardcore BDSM, this is Luke Skywalker we're talking about... Then again, we already know he's willing to take on challenges even if he doesn't know what he's doing. Hope you'll agree, he ends up doing OK with this one!

It’s not his usual way.

He does sometimes, sure. He’s a starfighter pilot, after all, and it’s _their_ way, a lot of them. Goes with the adrenaline and the action and the constant living on the knife edge of death. 

They are four years into the war against the Empire and they don’t count casualties anymore. 

The number got too high.

He thinks about that, drink in front of him, while his friends and squadmates stagger out of the bar in twos and threes, arms around each other. He took a while to cotton on, in the first days after Yavin. At first (he found out later) they’d honored how young he was. No one wanted to risk hurting the baby. 

But he proved himself fast, showed them that the Death Star wasn’t just a fluke, and pretty soon there were invitations for more than just drinks.

He accepted often at first. He’d wanted to be here for so long--belonging in a starfighter, belonging to a squadron, belonging to the fight against the Empire--that he didn’t even question _belonging_ in this way, too. Just thrilled to be part of the crowd.

But he figured out pretty quickly that drunken nights ended in hungover mornings. There was a different kind of hangover, too, something that left him feeling drawn out and empty. That wore on his soul, even as his squadmates seemed to be building theirs back up again.

They were so alive, all of them, so _alive._ Since he’d woken up to the presence of the Force it was a constant low hum in his head, against his skin. He could tune it out, most of the time, the way he could tune out the growl of an X-wing’s engine and feel the silence of space around him. But with the tangle of limbs and the heat of kisses and the feel of sweat on his body... 

There was no tuning out that energy. 

That intimacy. 

What ended up in his head wasn’t only laughter and passion and the sheer joy of fucking. Sometimes it was sadness, covered up but not hidden by rough movements and insistent hands. He could read buried anger in a too-gentle touch. He could see, in the raw moments after holding a lover through their climax, how thinly courage was drawn over fear.

Sometimes there was love, too, sometimes it was even love for _him,_ but it was a desperate kind of love. Tinged with the knowledge that it could end in power out, shields down, and a spray of molten shrapnel brighter than the stars.

So he doesn’t, usually, much anymore.

He sits there with his drink, and the bar empties out in twos and threes, until (again) he’s the last one there, alone.

But not alone, he realizes, surprised, as he senses that there’s still someone at the table behind him. Force sense or just that human knowledge when there are eyes on your back, he’s not sure. He turns and looks. She’s young, the girl at the table, dark hair, fine features, a shadow over one cheekbone that might be a bruise or just a trick of the light. She’s wearing a white t-shirt and he thinks, maybe, he’s seen her once or twice before.

Her eyes meet his and he feels awkward just staring at her so he says, “Join me?”

She looks surprised to be asked but she stands, picks up her drink, walks over. He can see now that she’s wearing an orange jumpsuit, top unbuttoned and folded down, sleeves tied around her waist. Standard dress for a pilot just off a run. And that’s definitely a bruise, two or three days old he guesses from the yellow tinge to its edges.

“Luke Skywalker,” he says, extending his hand, and she says, “I know.” A moment later she adds, “I’m Kala.”

“Who are you with?” he asks.

It’s a common part of introductions, for starfighter pilots: What squadron, who do you fly with, do we know each other already because you trust your life to the same people I’ve trusted with mine.

She hesitates long enough that he’s certain she’s brand new. Then, “Oh. Gold squadron,” she says. “Commander Antilles. He said you’re nice,” she adds, blushing clear up to her hairline. “I mean--”

“It’s ok,” he tells her. “I guess I have kind of a reputation.”

“Yeah,” she says, looking down, then seems to work up her courage. “I hope someday I can fly as well as you.”

“If you made it onto Wedge’s roster,” he says, “you must already be pretty good.” He means it. Wedge won’t take just anyone. Luke won’t either, but his Red Squadron’s known for building up raw talent. Wedge looks for pilots who already have honed reflexes and nerves of steel.

Which means that give her a few weeks, and this baby-faced young woman is going to have a row of notches carved under her cockpit window. 

Probably more than a few in her bedpost, as well.

Luke finds that he doesn’t want to think about that. About the lives she’ll take to protect her own, to protect her squadmates. About the lives he’s taken, with blaster and laser cannon and photon torpedoes, to win a better life for everyone they fight for. 

About how she’ll be able to burn off the sorrow in the combustion of alcohol and physical pleasure. While he’s still carrying the echoes of everyone he’s ever touched that way.

He doesn’t ask about the bruise. She probably doesn’t expect him to, anyway--or she won’t, soon enough. Pilots get in fights. They get banged around. 

Something always hurts. 

He finishes his drink and does his best to sound kind. “It’s been a long day,” he says. “Time for me to get some rest.”

She leaves a few coins on the table when he does, and they leave the bar together. 

“Sleep well,” he tells her, and heads for his quarters, alone.

 

He’s right. 

After a few weeks, Kala is never the last to leave the bar, and never on her own. She sits at tables surrounded by the other members of Gold Squadron, talking trash with the best of them, hopping over to swap stories with Green Squadron’s hotshots. The hesitant girl is gone and she is a starfighter pilot entirely, moving like the world should make space for her. As far as he can tell, it does.

And at first the glow he senses in her is inside and outside both, and he envies her for simply being _proud_ of what they do.

Then he doesn’t notice her, much, for a while, because he gets two new pilots at once ( _because he lost two good pilots at once_ ) and neither one of them is very good at taking orders. For a while he’s playing the odds on whether they’ll shape up or take someone down with them first. 

He’s learned how much he can drink without facing the hangover, but he needs all his abilities right now. The bar’s not even an option.

 

Wedge finally gets him back there after Red Three proves herself in battle and Red Seven, on the same mission, gets stripped of his wings and lands himself a week in the brig.

“You’ve earned a drink,” Wedge says. “I can’t believe you called the MPs on him.”

Luke downs the Corellian whisky Wedge ordered for him in one long swallow. “It was that or take his head off myself. I know I was young and stupid once, but I was never _deliberately_ stupid.” He glances at Wedge for confirmation and the older man grins.

“You’re still pretty damn young,” Wedge says.

“It seemed like the best way to show the others I was serious. If I’d only punched him, he’d be flying as someone else’s wingman in a week.”

Wedge signals for another round. “Even though you’re hopelessly inexperienced to be heading up a squadron,” he says, “and occasionally still stupid, you were right on this one. I saw what happened out there. If it had been anyone but you in the lead…”

“We’d have lost Dekan and Tran, at least. Possibly everyone. My heart’s still pounding,” Luke admits. “Flipping idiot.”

“Red Seven for that asshole move, or you for not booting him earlier?”

Luke takes a drink, sets the glass down. “Both.”

Wedge raises his own glass, clinks it against Luke’s. “Here’s to realizing when we’re among the assholes.”

They finish the round in silence. They’re longtime comrades at this point (two years, and that’s a long time to be both still alive and, mostly, whole), and sometimes it’s enough to sit and try to drown the dark thoughts together, and know they’re not doing it alone.

Across the room, several pilots from Wedge’s squadron are laughing. They’re shoulder-to-shoulder, chairs pushed close together and glasses crowding the small tabletop. Kala is perched on the table among the drinks, one booted foot curled under her and the other resting on another pilot’s knee. Her laughter rises loud above the others. 

Luke thinks there’s an edge to it, but maybe she’s just drunk. He’s certainly on his way there. And glad of it, tonight.

In the middle of the third round one of the Green Squadron hotshots slides into the seat next to Wedge, tosses an arm across his shoulder. Luke nods a greeting. He’s known her since he joined up, and better since she and Wedge have been spending time together. The two of them exchange a few words and look to Luke. It’s a little bit invitation, mostly apology.

“Go,” he waves them on. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Another burst of laughter carries from the Gold Squadron table. Kala’s leaning sideways to plant a kiss on one of the other women, one leg still bent and the other stretched out for balance, straight dark hair falling across her face. Luke watches her with a sort of passive interest, wondering when the table’s going to tip. 

Sure enough, a moment later there’s a yell as it starts to go over. Hands reach out to grab it and her. Kala lands in her friend’s lap while the table crashes back upright and everyone scrambles to rescue their drinks.

From the midst of the chaos, Kala catches him looking. Waves, hollers across the room, laughing through the words. “Skywalker! C’mon, we’ll buy you a drink!”

He lifts a hand in acknowledgement, shares a smile with the crowd around her. 

Doesn’t say _I think you’ve had enough_ because he doesn’t know, himself, what’s actually _enough._ The only rule is, be sober before you lock the canopy down.

Thinking of that makes him think of the morning. Of the men and women he’s responsible for. Of the fact that he was damn lucky he had that extra sense, that flash of foreknowledge, to warn him what Red Seven was about to do. 

He leaves the third glass of whisky half finished. Stops on the way out to lay hands on the shoulders of two Red Squadron pilots sharing a quiet couple of beers. To say, I’m sorry for today, for not being smart enough, for not being fast enough to realize we had a pilot not worthy of you. It’s an apology that they refuse, as they always do. Not needed. “See you in the morning, Luke,” Dekan says. 

“Things’ll look brighter without that bastard,” Tran adds, reaching up to rest her hand over his. “We should’ve shot him down for you a week ago.”

Luke turns his hand over, clasps her fingers for a moment, palm against palm. “See you in the morning.”

“Awww, come back, Skywalker!” Kala’s voice follows him. Her words are slurred. The laughter has calmed, and her call rings out over a moment of quiet.

 _Are you alright?_ he thinks, but he doesn’t project the thought. He doesn’t know if she’d hear him, anyway. Her squadmates will look after her. 

It’s scripture among starfighter pilots: Never leave a man down.

The night is quiet, the stars hidden by thick clouds. He sits up for a while, watching the empty walkways through the small window by his bed.

 

Months go by, and the war against the Empire rages on. 

Red Squadron’s dispatched to the Taravan system to help establish a new base. Sent on a long reconnaissance run to the Outer Rim. They lose another pilot in a skirmish over a trading station. They drink to her memory and are back in the air the next day. 

Gold and Green Squadrons have their own missions, defending capital ships, escorting freighters with food and medical supplies, taking out an Imperial base. 

When Luke and Wedge connect over the subspace radio, they share tactics and one-up each other on TIE fighters downed. They don’t compare casualties until just before they sign off, so it’s quick, like lancing a wound. 

 

The next time he sees Kala, it’s been a bad day. 

Red Squadron came through ok, following Luke’s lead. They were hopelessly outnumbered. Outgunned. _Outsmarted,_ because the Empire shouldn’t have known they were coming.

It took all his skill and more, tapping into the Force and trying to sort out vision from _visions_ as enemy ships swooped among them and laser cannons turned black space bright. He hung onto calm for his pilots, putting warmth and reassurance into his orders over the comm. Even managed a moment of snark at the number of TIE fighters sent to try to take them out. 

When they touch down, count in, are all back alive, he ducks under his X-wing and pretends to check on R2 so they won’t see him shaking.

The Red Squadron pilots share a few words, clasp hands. Some exchange brief, hard hugs. 

Debriefing tomorrow, Luke tells them. Go and rest now. Eat. Sleep. 

We lost this one. But we made it home.

They don’t speak of the ones who didn’t. They don’t have to. There is no missing the four empty berths in Gold Squadron’s landing bay. As Luke sends his pilots home he can hear Wedge doing the same.

Go and rest. 

Eat. 

Sleep. 

_Hold onto each other_ isn’t spoken, either, but it doesn’t need to be.

 

The barracks are long, low buildings behind the hangars, rectangles with clean, straight lines. Square windows, one for each living space, line the sides. The rooms are utilitarian and small, but the walls aren’t thin. He’s looking forward to sleep, if he can sleep. He never knows, until he gets there, if the silence behind a shut door and closed window will be a comfort, or a conduit for thoughts that will keep him awake until the window is pale grey with dawn.

He’s in the third building down. It’s a warm night. On most nights like this, the sounds of voices and laughter carry through open windows, across the spaces between buildings. Tonight all is quiet. If anyone is talking or--anything else, they’ve closed themselves in. Closed the world out.

There’s a figure sitting in the darkness outside Building Three. Not on the steps out front, where solar-powered lights make warm, overlapping circles. Kala’s got her back against the side of the building, knees drawn up, dark hair a black hole in the shadows. She’s got her orange pilot’s fatigues rolled down to her waist again and tied, sleeves dangling to either side.

She doesn’t look up until he’s right in front of her.

“Hi,” she says. Her face looks… different. Not sad, exactly. Not really any expression at all.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asks, wondering what she is doing there. He knows everyone in Building Three, so he knows her quarters are someplace else.

She’s slow to answer. When she does it’s low, and she doesn’t meet his eyes. “Yes.”

He thinks of wishing her a good night, of going inside, of stripping off his sweat-stiff jumpsuit and sinking into bed.

He crouches down in front of her and says what he didn’t, that night at the bar. “Are you alright?”

The strange blank expression on her face doesn’t change. Her lips part, but she doesn’t form words for a long time.

“I can't feel anymore,” she says, finally, so soft, but the words are clear in the stillness. “I can't even cry.”

Luke has one of those flashes of insight that, sometimes, he wishes he didn’t. “Were you waiting for me?”

 

The room he’s been assigned to is plain. A bed, a wall of cupboards for clothes and a few possessions, a shelf that’s stacked with flight logs and technical manuals. A smooth white surface that serves as desk, workspace, dining table for the rare times he doesn’t eat at the commissary. It’s also extra seating when he has guests, because there’s only one chair. 

The space is neat, but not because he’s naturally like that. He doesn’t own much. Starfighter pilots go where they’re sent. And what does a pilot really need besides his helmet, his reflexes, and his wits? Blaster, survival gear. Utility belt, holster, boots. 

It’s not like he brought much with him from home. 

He gives her the chair and sits on the bed. If he moved over a bit, their knees would touch. 

Kala has brought the stillness inside with her. He feels it creeping over himself, as well. He’s sure he should say something kind to her. He isn’t finding words.

It’s nothing new to lose someone. It’s nothing new to lose half a squadron. It doesn’t happen often, thank the gods, but. It’s not even the first time it’s happened to Wedge.

Across from him, close enough to touch, Kala crosses her arms at her waist, grips the hem of her white t-shirt, and lifts it over her head. 

Her breasts are bound with the soft, elastic wrap that most of the female pilots wear. Her skin is pale brown with a faint hint of gold, except for a dark red line of bruise running from her right collarbone down her chest, exactly where her safety harness would lie. He’s seen that same bruise many times. On different colors of skin, in different stages of healing. 

Her gaze on him is a language he knows, and he has no doubt she knows it, too. But she sits with arms at her sides, shoulders hunched, knees and ankles touching. The rest of the message is all wrong.

He doesn’t want to embarrass her. “What do you want, Kala?”

“They said you--” 

He hasn’t seen that blush since the first night they met.

“You can do things.”

The words could mean anything, but he _hears_ what she is trying to say. _Help._

“Did someone send you here tonight?” he asks.

She shakes her head, a tiny movement. Her hair just barely brushes her shoulders.

He says again, gentle, “What do you want?”

“I want,” she says, the words slow and quiet and empty, trailing off before she begins again. “It’s supposed to hurt,” she says. “Why doesn’t it hurt?” Her arms come up, crossing over her middle, bunching up the fabric of her orange jumpsuit where it’s tied at her waist. “I’m not even glad it wasn’t me.”

He thinks of that trick that old Ben Kenobi used, influencing others’ thoughts with a waved hand and soft words. He’s never tried it on a mission, would feel foolish and it’s far too dangerous if he gets it wrong. But in private, in these small rooms with the men and women he’s been intimate with… He’s tried to send, _It’ll be all right._ He’s tried to say, _You’re beautiful._ He’s mostly stopped short of _oh gods, please don’t stop,_ but he’s tried that once or twice, too. He has no idea if it’s ever actually worked.

Luke speaks before he’s even made up his mind. “Come here.” 

It’s in his nature: He’s never not answered a cry for help.

 

She gets up from the chair but then she stands there, uncertain, dark hair and haunted eyes and smooth fragile skin, orange jumpsuit and heavy black boots. 

“Here,” he says and pats the bed beside him, and she sits down slowly, next to him but not touching. He puts his hands on her shoulders and she turns with the pressure, facing away from him now, awkward with both feet still on the floor.

He runs one hand down the back of her neck, feeling the tension in the broad, flat muscle that extends to her shoulders. He places open palms over her back between shoulders and spine, pressing warmth into her skin for a moment, then sinking his fingers into the groove above her collarbone and beginning to work at the tightness.

She tries to twist to face him but he's stronger and he holds her there. 

“Let me,” he says, and it's not a question.

She stills, but she sits so straight. She doesn't bend under his hands. Her shoulders don't drop. He can feel her breathing, shallow, like everything's too tight to move.

He should send her home. Let her talk it out with the other survivors of Gold Squadron. Let her bring her troubles to Wedge, who was already guiding pilots through this kind of thing when Luke was knocking sand out of his boots on Tatooine.

But it was a hard day for him, too. His defenses are down. He feels like he’s got three engines out and just took a direct hit. 

It would be nice to focus on something else, for a change.

His hands slide from her shoulders to her waist, over her hips. He lays his palms and fingers flat again, covering the softness of her belly, then drags his hands up to her breasts, over the fabric of the wrap.

She lets her head fall back, resting it against his neck, just under his jaw. She’s not sinking into him. It doesn’t feel like wanting. It feels like despair. “I can’t,” she says, and what he hears, in that strange sense that’s not consistent but never wrong, is _Please make me._

“Stand up,” he tells her, and “turn around,” and puts his hands around her waist and lifts her up to sit on the table, facing him now. 

He keeps enough distance to see her as he unclasps the wrap and unwinds it from around her chest. Her breasts are small and high, nipples dark, pale blue veins under delicate skin. Her hips are still narrow where they disappear into the bunched-up fabric and she looks so _young,_ he thinks, _so young,_ and _what am I doing?_

It’s startling to remember, a moment later, that he’s barely out of his teens himself, just twenty-one and how is that possible, when he’s gone from farm kid to squadron commander with seven lives in his hands. 

She's sitting there now not moving, not reaching for him. There is the faintest rise of gooseflesh on her skin and those small, dark nipples are smooth and still soft.

He's still getting _please_ from the energy around her.

He asks, “Do you want to get dressed?”

That small shake of the head again. 

It’s not enough, he doesn’t trust it, he doesn’t trust that Force sense either, not for something as important as this, not when his eyes are getting a different message from his mind.

“Can I walk you home?”

She straightens her shoulders now, lifts her head. For a moment, chin up and eyes proud, she looks like a starfighter pilot again, like she knows what she’s doing and everybody better get out of her way.

“I want you,” she says, “to fuck me. And I want you to make me cry.”

He’s startled for a moment, but it’s a straightforward request.

She is half naked, she is lovely, and he is drawn out and stressed and sad and it’s been a while, quite a while honestly, and his own skin feels raw and and over-sensitive to the rough fabric of his jumpsuit, and she is _asking._

“Take off your boots,” he says, and he says it like an order.

Her eyes widen but then she leans down and shoves the left leg of her jumpsuit up over her boot top and yanks on the laces. She tugs that boot off and drops it to the floor. Her breasts sway just a little bit as she unties the other one and pulls it off, then sits back up and drops that boot from waist height so it lands with a thud.

She gives him just the slightest smile, the tiniest upturning of lips, and he echoes it, thinking ( _sending?_ ) _Very good._

“Socks,” he says, and there’s something absurd about that but she just follows instructions, peeling off the military-issue wool socks and looking to him for permission before she tosses them to the floor.

And now she’s waiting again and he decides that he’ll wait too, and during that brief standoff a faint, reddish blush spreads across her face and neck and chest, and those small, dark nipples tighten.

He can feel his own body respond, but he’s already decided this is about her, for now at least. If he’s a little uncomfortable, well, he can stand it. 

“Pants,” he says next, inclining his head to indicate the orange jumpsuit. She begins to stand so she can undress but hesitates and he sees that, yes, this is how this game will go. 

If there is anything he’s learned, being given command of an X-wing squadron before his 20th birthday, it’s how to give a clear order. “You can stand up. I want to see everything off. And then I want you to stay there.”

She doesn’t, though, she takes off the jumpsuit and the black leggings beneath it, and then she steps closer to him and starts to reach for the zipper of his own pilot’s fatigues, still closed up to his chest.

Commander Skywalker has also learned what to do about insubordination. “Hey,” he says, pushing her arms away and placing them back at her sides. “What did I say?”

She steps back.

It’s so tempting to reach for her. To get out of the day’s clothes, strip off their disastrous mission, bury his face against her neck (hers… anyone’s…) and try to obliterate their comrades’ deaths in the smell of musk and the friction of skin against skin. Today he’s lost one old friend, one new one, and two he’d only known briefly, but they were his friends because they flew together, fought together, blasted TIE fighters out of the air and whooped together over the comm as they snuffed out the lives of enemy pilots who had comrades of their own. 

He knows it won’t work, for him it never works, not really, but oh he wants to try.

“Why are you here?” he says.

She stands there, naked, silent.

“Why are you _here,_ ” he says again, and there’s steel in it this time.

“Because they died,” she says.

 _I want you to fuck me,_ she’d said, and yeah, that sounds good. But she also said, _I want you to make me cry._

“Starfighter pilots die.” He says it deliberately. “You didn’t know that when you signed on?” 

Her chin lifts again, defiant. “I knew.”

“You’re not here because someone died,” he says, and he knows it sounds cruel. “You said before. You don’t even care.”

She reaches for him again and he realizes only afterward that he’s shoved her back without touching her, tapping into the Force without conscious thought. 

“I said, stay there.”

Her eyes have gone wide and that extra sense of his is pinging again, and now what he’s sensing is _afraid._

He follows it. “I can make you stay there,” he says, standing and taking a step toward her. The room is so small that one step puts him centimeters from her body. He can feel the heat on his hands when he hovers his palms over her breasts, not touching, but feeling the energy between them.

She stays in place, but she’s quivering.

“You’re going to move now,” he tells her, and takes another step so that her face is against his neck and his body presses against hers, and he backs her into the wall and grasps her wrists with each hand and lifts them above her head. When he drops his hands hers stay there, pinned against the wall, and she’s looking at him and her eyes are huge.

“You’ve heard I can do things,” he reminds her. 

She nods: _permission._

He cups a hand below one breast, leans in, kisses her hard and slow. She responds right away, opening her mouth for him and biting at his lower lip, but the feeling that goes with it isn’t passion. It isn’t anything.

“I watched you,” he says. “When we first met? You were nothing but proud.” 

He remembers climbing up into the cockpit of a starfighter for the very first time. Remembers the euphoria of photon torpedoes hitting their target, of leaving the Death Star a firework in the sky behind him, of coming back to cheers.

He remembers the empty seats at the debriefing the next day and the discovery that being the hero is only a very, very small part of a very big story.

“You,” he says, hand still on her breast, rolling the dark nipple between his fingers. “You,” he says, making a line of kisses on her neck, using teeth, “were a fucking hotshot, weren’t you?”

She is pinned there, hands still above her head, his body pressing hers against the wall. Nowhere to go. She tries to twist away but his other hand comes up from her hip to the side of her head and he doesn’t let her move.

“You went out there,” he says, “and you knew you could die, and you knew _they_ could, and you went anyway and you pretended, didn’t you?” 

He’s leaning down just enough for his face to be inches from hers, eyes at the same level, and she’s refusing to look at him but he doesn’t stop. 

Can’t stop.

He kisses her again, rough, forcing words against her mouth even as she’s kissing him back so that teeth catch lips and he’s not even sure which of them is bleeding. “You buried it,” and it comes out a growl. “I saw you, you were drunk for weeks, you were _laughing._ ” He leans back to breathe and then his mouth is on hers again. “You were loud because you tried to drown it out but _it won’t drown._ ”

Her arms drop suddenly as he lets go that hold, and immediately she is hanging onto him, so tight that although there was hardly any space between them before, now it’s only the fabric of his jumpsuit that lets him know where his body ends and hers begins. 

He picks her up and shoves her legs around his waist (her bare skin against rough fabric) and carries her back to the table and drops her there.

“Let go,” he tells her, because if she doesn’t he’s going to stay right there the rest of the night, pressed up against her, huddled there with his own raw pain while she goes on feeling numb and empty, and that’s not what she asked for. 

She doesn’t let go.

“Let. Go.” He steps back to force it. She leans with him so he steps back again, and now she does let go because it’s that or land on the floor.

She’s back where she was earlier, perched on the worktable, and her shoulders are still hunched and she still has that look of being not quite there, but she’s also breathing harder and her skin is flushed. Now that he’s stepped back, now that he can take a breath and now that he can think again, he wonders, _Am I doing this right?_ There are bruises starting to darken along her neck. He stands there, a meter away from her. He closes his eyes and _listens._

_Are you ok?_

_You’re hurting me,_ is what comes back to him. _Don’t stop._

He moves back to her and now he can’t help it, he kisses her more gently, smooths her straight dark hair where he’d mussed it, slides his lips down from hers as he sinks to his knees and takes her nipples into his mouth, one at a time, tongue soft against their hardness. But something’s not right, because her hands aren’t on his shoulders or in his hair, and she’s not making any sound, and when he realizes that he gets back out of his own head enough to look up at her with a silent question.

“Please don’t stop,” she tells him.

It’s clear she doesn’t mean what he was doing just now.

He’s not sure he wants to go back to that other place, himself, but he already agreed (in his own head, at least), plus: She’s not ok. 

And it’s gospel, among starfighter pilots: You don’t leave a man down.

Still on his knees, still looking up at her, he forces his mind back where it was. To empty chairs on Yavin 4, to commlinks gone suddenly silent, to the flash (not often but not never) of terror from an enemy pilot just after a laser blast hits home, just before the TIE fighter the other man is sitting in becomes a flash of light and its own debris field. 

He puts his hands on her knees, spreads her legs apart. The hair over her labia is as dark as on her head, but here she has curls. He bends his head and dips his tongue into those curls, just for a moment, then drags his mouth up, over her belly, between her breasts, scrambling from his knees to an awkward crouch as he licks along the side of her neck and up to her lips, tasting blood again. 

“People die,” he says, reaching down, sliding a finger through the wetness between her legs. “It’s part of what we do.” He’s rock-hard by now and he could end this, strip out of his own clothes and slip into that warmth and let go quickly, and maybe bring her with him. But he’ll have more control with his hands, and that’s what this is about now. 

“We do it,” he says, slipping two fingers inside her, “because if we don’t,” he says, thumb against her clit, “other people die. Whole settlements,” he says, thrusting his fingers into her and feeling her buck with it. “Men.” Again. “Children.” Again, other hand against her lower back so she can’t move away. “Families.”

“We fly,” he says, feeling her muscles tighten around his fingers, his mouth against her ear, biting down on on her earlobe as he twists his hand. “And we kill,” he says, running his tongue behind her ear now, forcing her head to the side. “And some of us die,” he says, sliding a third finger into her, snug and tight, and still not letting her hips move, not letting her pull away.

“And we do it,” he says, voice going raw as he fights back his own tears, speaking into her skin, “because they are what’s wrong, and we are what’s right.” He’s following her rhythm now, feeling her tighten each time he thrusts with his hand, each time his thumb slides against her clit, and his words match that rhythm as he tells her, and _tells_ her, “We are what’s right, and _you_ are what’s right, and I _will not let you_ let them win.”

 

After, he holds her in his arms, sitting on the bed under the window with her body gathered up against his. He’s still half-dressed, still has his boots on even, but he’s let her undo his jumpsuit and strip off his shirt, and her head’s on his chest, skin against skin. He places a kiss over her straight dark hair.

He _listens_ and finds that her mind’s gone quiet, sharp edges of memory softened. Tears from her closed eyes slick his skin, cool where they slip beyond the points of contact.

They're good tears though, as good as admitting a hard truth can be. 

“Go ahead,” he says, soft against her hair. “It’s all right.

“Get some rest. Go and eat.

“Live.”

She will, he can feel it.

Right now, though, she is falling asleep, and he lets her.


End file.
